Recent incidents highlight how frequently – and creatively – cybercriminals try to steal data. From “homemade browsers” to million-user data breaches, to the daily theft carried out every day by infostealers and phishing attacks, every day.

All this stolen information ends up for sale in the underground to the highest bidder. From there, it can be used in many uniformly illegal ways – from identity theft, to credit card fraud, to launching attacks on other users. They can also be used to buy either expensive goods (which are then shipped to the cybercriminals), or pay for “bulletproof” web hosting that is frequently used for malicious sites. These may not cost that much individually, but the losses to users can be significant.

It’s not just the fruits of cybercrime that are bought and sold in the underground – so are the tools, like exploit kits, vulnerabilities, and malware toolkits as well. Price tags here can reach the thousands of dollars, particularly for more advanced and sophisticated tools.

There is so much money in the underground that it has become organized and systematic, much like real-world businesses. While the specifics of how the underground has organized itself varies from region to region, the mere fact that it has organized itself is noteworthy – both to allow for more information and tools to be sold, as well as reducing the risks of getting caught.